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Washington — The Biden administration will again allow Iran to run absentee voter stations on U.S. soil for next week’s Iranian presidential election, VOA has learned, prompting the Islamic republic’s critics to denounce the plan as absurd and shameful. Iranian Foreign Ministry official Alireza Mahmoudi told state media on Sunday that Tehran is planning to set up more than 30 ballot stations across the United States for the June 28 vote to replace Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month. Mahmoudi said ballot boxes for Iranian absentee voters would be set up at the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington and in New York but did not identify other locations. Iranian state media say the United States is home to the largest proportion of overseas-based Iranians at 30%. The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey estimates there are about half a million people born in Iran or of Iranian origin in the U.S., while the Iranian American nonprofit group National Union for Democracy in Iran, or NUFDI, says it has a higher estimate of more than 1 million. Canada and Turkey follow with 12% shares of the Iranian diaspora, according to Iranian state media. Mahmoudi said Iran is arranging absentee voting in other diaspora locations as well. In a statement reported exclusively by VOA, the U.S. State Department said on Friday it has no expectation that Iran’s presidential election will be free or fair. The Islamic republic’s ruling clerics permit only loyalists of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to run for offices such as president and parliament, which are subservient to him on key policy issues. Iran’s last parliamentary and presidential elections, in March and 2021, respectively, drew record-low official turnouts, with the lack of choices leaving much of the electorate disinterested. Opponents of Iran’s clerical rulers at home and abroad repeatedly have called for boycotts of Iranian elections, which they view as shams, and they have done so again for the June 28 vote. They also have noted that the Islamic republic seeks legitimacy for its 45-year authoritarian rule by trying to boost turnout for such elections. VOA asked the State Department how authorizing ballot stations in the U.S. for Iran, whose poor human rights record it has strongly criticized, is consistent with the U.S. view of Iranian elections as neither free nor fair. A spokesperson responded by noting that Iran set up U.S.-based ballot stations for previous presidential elections, in 2021 and 2017, with approval from the Biden administration and its predecessor, the Trump administration, respectively. “This is nothing new,” the spokesman said, in reference to the planned ballot stations for next week's vote. Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser to the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, countered that permitting Iran to engage in another round of absentee balloting on U.S. soil is a “theater of the absurd.” In a statement to VOA, Goldberg wrote: “How and why we would facilitate such a charade for a state sponsor of terrorism that is hunting Americans every day is beyond me.” He also questioned who would be operating Iran’s ballot stations in the U.S. and what relationship they have to the Iranian government. VOA put those questions to Iran’s U.N. mission, which responded by saying it declines to comment because it “believes the issue is not of interest to an American audience.” A day before Iran’s 2021 presidential election, the Iranian Interests Section in Washington published an online chart showing the addresses of ballot stations in 29 U.S. cities where Iranian citizens could vote. Besides the Interests Section, the other listed venues included 20 properties of U.S. and British hotel companies and eight Islamic centers. There was no indication of who operated the stations. VOA contacted three hotels that hosted the 2021 ballot stations on Friday to ask if they were planning to host such stations again next week. Staff members who answered the phones at the Marriott Spring Hill Suites in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and at the Hilton Garden Inn Irvine-Orange County Airport in California said they had no record of such events on their schedules. A woman who answered the phone at the Comfort Inn Sandy Springs in Atlanta, Georgia, repeatedly hung up when asked if it is hosting an event next Friday. Cameron Khansarinia, vice president of the Iranian American group NUFDI, told VOA that diaspora Iranians have a responsibility to protest the Islamic republic’s “shameful” absentee voter stations wherever they are set up. In reference to those who operate and vote at the planned ballot stations, Khansarinia said, “While we should respect the physical safety of these individuals and U.S. law, they deserve to be publicly shamed for their absolutely amorality.” VOA also asked the State Department whether U.S. authorities have granted licenses to businesses and nonprofit groups that plan to host the Iranian ballot stations to exempt them from U.S. sanctions that generally prohibit the provision of commercial services to Iran. The spokesperson replied, “Foreign governments carrying out election-related activities in the U.S. must do so in a manner consistent with U.S. law and regulations.” The Treasury Department did not respond to similar questions sent by VOA on Tuesday, regarding the granting of licenses for Iranian ballot stations. Brian O’Toole, a former senior adviser in the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, told VOA it is a gray area. O’Toole, a nonresident senior fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council, identified two U.S. regulations, OFAC’s General License E and the Code of Federal Regulations section 560.545, as potentially permitting election activity and democracy-building in Iran. “Despite the Iranian government's issues with elections, the U.S. has a clear interest in promoting democracy,” said O’Toole, who managed OFAC’s sanctions program during former President Barack Obama’s administration. “What this administration probably would lean toward is the principle that people who are eligible to vote [in Iran’s election] should make the decision as to whether they should or should not,” he said.

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NEW DELHI — India and Bangladesh on Saturday moved to bolster their defense relationship and signed agreements for expanding cooperation in maritime security, ocean economy, and space and telecommunication sectors, as New Delhi presents itself as a regional power and a counterweight to China. The agreements were signed during Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India, the first foreign leader to visit New Delhi since Narendra Modi became the country’s prime minister for a third term two weeks ago. Modi welcomed Bangladesh’s decision to join his Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative to expand and facilitate regional cooperation of India’s maritime neighbors. He said the deals with Dhaka were part of his country’s pursuit of a neighborhood-first approach. Bangladesh also enjoys good ties with China, its major trade partner mostly for raw materials. But maintaining a close relationship with Beijing is challenging for Bangladesh, which also balances diplomatic and trade relationships with India and the United States, China’s main rivals. Bangladesh’s garment industry, which brings in more than 80% of foreign currency from exports, is heavily dependent on China for raw materials. Hasina told reporters in New Delhi that the two countries decided to boost the sharing of river waters and cooperation in the power and energy sectors. She also met Indian industry leaders and invited them to invest in Bangladesh, which plans to develop bigger ports, waterways rail, and road connectivity. India loaned Bangladesh $8 billion in the last eight years, to help expand that infrastructure. Since Hasina’s Awami League party came to power in 2009, she has acted to address New Delhi's concern about Indian militant groups taking shelter in Bangladesh. However, an agreement on sharing the waters of the River Teesta remains elusive. The question of illegal immigration from Bangladesh to India also has dogged bilateral ties for years. India is Bangladesh’s largest export destination in Asia. Trade between the two countries touched $15.9 billion in the financial year 2022-23. New Delhi mainly exports cotton, motor vehicles, sugar, iron, steel, aluminum, electrical and electronic equipment to Bangladesh. It imports cereal, pulp paper and board, cement and raw hides from Bangladesh.

Beirut, Lebanon — An Iraqi fighter from an Iran-backed group was killed in an overnight airstrike in eastern Syria near the Iraq border, the group and a war monitor said Saturday. The strike occurred in Deir Ezzor province, where Iran wields significant influence and which is regularly targeted by Israel and the United States, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "An Iraqi member in the Islamic Resistance in Iraq was killed, and two others were injured in a preliminary toll, as a result of an unknown airstrike," the Observatory said, referring to a loose alliance of Iran-backed groups. The Britain-based monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, said an explosion was heard coinciding with the strike "in Albukamal countryside ... a few kilometers away from [the] Syrian-Iraqi borders." Iraq's Sayyed al-Shuhada Brigades announced the death of a fighter in a strike "Friday which targeted his vehicle during a reconnaissance patrol on the Iraqi-Syrian border," accusing the United States of being behind the attack. Responsibility for the strike was not immediately claimed, but a spokesperson for the U.S.-led military coalition formed in 2014 to fight the Islamic State group told AFP that "neither the coalition nor U.S. forces carried out overnight strikes in Deir Ezzor." The Observatory said that several hours before the strike, drones flew over the area. Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes, primarily targeting pro-Iran groups — which it rarely comments on publicly. In late March, 16 Tehran-affiliated fighters, including an Iranian military adviser, were killed in strikes on eastern Syria. The strikes also killed one civilian working for the World Health Organization. Iran has long been a key ally of the Syrian government, most notably providing military advisers.

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Tehran, Iran — Iran's Supreme Court has overturned a death sentence against popular rapper Toomaj Salehi, who was jailed for backing nationwide protests sparked by Mahsa Amini's death, his lawyer said Saturday. "Salehi's death sentence was overturned," the rapper's lawyer, Amir Raisian, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, adding that the Islamic republic's top court had ordered a retrial. In April, an Iranian court sentenced Salehi to death for the capital offence of "corruption on earth," Raisian said at the time. The rapper was also found guilty of "assistance in sedition, assembly and collusion, propaganda against the state and calling for riots," the lawyer said. Salehi, 33, was arrested in October 2022 after publicly backing demonstrations that had erupted a month earlier, triggered by Amini's death in police custody. Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, was detained by the morality police in Tehran over an alleged breach of the Islamic republic's strict dress rules for women. "The Supreme Court prevented an irreparable judicial error," Raisian said, adding that the court also ruled that Salehi's "previous sentence (six years and three months) was also without compliance with the rules of a multiplicity of crimes." The monthslong protests sparked by Amini's death saw hundreds of people killed, including dozens of security personnel. Thousands were arrested as authorities moved to quell what they branded foreign-instigated "riots." In January, Mehdi Yarrahi, another singer who criticized the headscarf requirement for women, was sentenced to a total of two years and eight months in prison on multiple charges, which would have been served concurrently. The court later changed Yarrahi's sentence to home confinement due to his health issues. Nine men have been executed in protest-related cases involving killings and other violence against security forces. Covering the neck and head has been compulsory for women in Iran since 1983, following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Since the protests, women have been increasingly flouting the strict dress code, but Iranian police have in recent months toughened controls on women who ignore the rules. Iranian media has in recent weeks reported that police in the capital have launched a campaign codenamed "Noor," the Persian word for “light,” in their efforts to double down on those who break the dress code. In an effort to tackle those breaking hijab laws, the authorities have also shut down cafes and restaurants where the wearing of the hijab was not respected. The country's parliament has also approved a draft "Chastity and Hijab" law that seeks to toughen penalties on women not adhering to the dress rules.

LAS VEGAS, NEW MEXICO — Heavy rain and flash flood warnings in the U.S. state of New Mexico prompted officials to order mandatory evacuations Saturday, with shelters set up for displaced residents. The National Weather Service announced a flash flood emergency on Friday night through early Saturday. The impacted areas included the city of Las Vegas and communities near Albuquerque. Up to 5 centimeters (2 inches) of rain had fallen by late Friday, with additional rainfall up to 3.8 centimeters (1.5 inches) expected overnight, the weather service said. There was flash flooding with multiple road closures on the north and west sides of Las Vegas, the weather service said. The Las Vegas municipal government announced mandatory evacuations of parts of the city in social media posts, warning residents to prepare for overnight stays. The city said it established shelters for residents on the west and east sides of the city. The city government asked residents to limit nonessential water use, while also clarifying that online rumors suggesting the city's dams had broken were false and that the dams “are currently intact." New Mexico also suffered devastating wildfires this week that killed at least two people and forced thousands to flee from the flames. The South Fork and Salt fires in south-central New Mexico destroyed or damaged an estimated 1,400 structures. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham planned to tour the disaster area Saturday.

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BEIJING — A family of six was found dead by rescuers in Fujian province, state media reported Saturday, adding to the extreme weather deaths after downpours caused landslides in the area, even as authorities extended a warning of more severe weather ahead. The six people, who had previously been reported missing, were found dead in a temple near their home by rescuers after days of searching in Fujian’s Shanghang county, according to the state-backed Hongxing news. They had gone to the temple seeking shelter, as it was on higher ground, but the building was toppled by a landslide, killing the family. Authorities on Friday said 47 people were dead in neighboring Guangdong province, which has seen historic flooding caused by the rains. The weather damaged more than a hundred bridges and flooded farmland and destroyed roads connecting rural townships. The heaviest rains fell from Sunday into Tuesday, toppling trees and collapsing homes, and authorities estimated billions of dollars in damage. China's National Meteorological Center issued a warning for more extreme weather across a swath of provinces in the south on Saturday, extending a warning from Friday, and for a few areas in the north. Henan and Anhui provinces in central China, as well as Jiangsu province on the coast and the southern province of Guizhou, all are expecting hail and strong thunderstorms, according to the forecast. In Heilongjiang province in the northeast, railways canceled multiple trains running over the weekend owing to the heavy rain. Last week, Fujian and Guangxi provinces in southern China experienced landslides and flooding amid heavy rain. One student died in Guangxi after falling into a river swollen from the downpour.

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Xichang, China — A French-Chinese satellite blasted off Saturday on a hunt for the mightiest explosions in the universe, in a notable example of cooperation between a Western power and the Asian giant. Developed by engineers from both countries, the Space Variable Objects Monitor, or SVOM, will seek out gamma-ray bursts, the light from which has traveled billions of light years to reach Earth. The 930-kilogram (2,050-pound) satellite carrying four instruments — two French, two Chinese — took off around 3 p.m. aboard a Chinese Long March 2-C rocket from a space base in Xichang, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, AFP journalists witnessed. Gamma-ray bursts generally occur after the explosion of huge stars — those more than 20 times as big as the sun — or the fusion of compact stars. The extremely bright cosmic beams can give off a blast of energy equivalent to over a billion billion suns. Observing them is like "looking back in time, as the light from these objects takes a long time to reach us," Ore Gottlieb, an astrophysicist at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Astrophysics in New York, told AFP. “Several mysteries” The rays carry traces of the gas clouds and galaxies they pass through on their journey through space — valuable data for better understanding the history and evolution of the universe. "SVOM has the potential to unravel several mysteries in the field of [gamma-ray bursts], including detecting the most distant GRBs in the universe, which correspond to the earliest GRBs," Gottlieb said. The most distant bursts identified to date were produced just 630 million years after the Big Bang — when the universe was in its infancy. "We are ... interested in gamma-ray bursts for their own sake, because they are very extreme cosmic explosions which allow us to better understand the death of certain stars," said Frederic Daigne, an astrophysicist at the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris. "All of this data makes it possible to test the laws of physics with phenomena that are impossible to reproduce in the laboratory on Earth," he said. Once analyzed, the data could help to better understand the composition of space, the dynamics of gas clouds or other galaxies. The project stems from a partnership between the French and Chinese space agencies, as well as other scientific and technical groups from both nations. Space cooperation at this level between the West and China is uncommon, especially since the United States banned all collaboration between NASA and Beijing in 2011. Race against time "U.S. concerns on technology transfer have inhibited U.S. allies from collaborating with the Chinese very much, but it does happen occasionally," said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the United States. In 2018, China and France jointly launched CFOSAT, an oceanographic satellite mainly used in marine meteorology. And several European countries have taken part in China's Chang'e lunar exploration program. So, while SVOM is "by no means unique," it remains "significant" in the context of space collaboration between China and the West, said McDowell. Once in orbit 625 kilometers (388 miles) above the Earth, the satellite will send its data back to observatories. The main challenge is that gamma-ray bursts are extremely brief, leaving scientists in a race against time to gather information. Once it detects a burst, SVOM will send an alert to a team on duty around the clock. Within five minutes, they will have to rev up a network of telescopes on the ground that will align precisely with the axis of the burst's source to make more detailed observations.

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RAMALLAH, West Bank — An Israeli national was found shot dead in a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank on Saturday morning, Israel's army said, as violence surges in the occupied territory. The army said the man was pronounced dead after being fatally shot in the town of Qalqilya, and that Israeli troops were currently operating in the area. Saturday's announcement came a day after Israeli forces shot dead two militants in the same West Bank town. No further details were made public. Violence has flared in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war erupted last October. Since then, at least 549 Palestinians in the territory have been killed by Israeli fire say the Palestinian Health Ministry, which tracks the killings. Over that same time, Palestinians in the West Bank have killed at least nine Israelis, including five soldiers, according to U.N. data. Israeli nationals are prohibited from entering Qalqilya and other areas of the West Bank that fall under the under the control of the Palestinian Authority. In April, the death of a 14-year-old Israeli settler sparked a series of settler attacks on Palestinian towns in the territory. The army said the boy was murdered and later arrested a Palestinian in connection with the killing. In 2014, the abduction and killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank escalated tensions and eventually ignited a 50-day Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, at the time the deadliest round of fighting between the two sides. Over recent years, the PA’s influence in the northern West Bank has waned as militant groups have grown increasingly powerful. The Israel-Hamas war erupted on October 7 when Hamas militants stormed southern Israel and killed around 1,200 people and took hostage some 250 others. Israel has responded by bombarding and invading the enclave, killing over 37, 400 Palestinians there according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. Israel captured the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories as part of their hoped-for independent state. 

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KYIV, Ukraine — Russia launched a new barrage of missiles and drones in an overnight attack on Ukraine on Saturday, damaging energy facilities in the southeast and west of the country and injuring at least two energy workers, Ukrainian officials said. Ukraine's air defense shot down 12 of 16 missiles and all 13 drones launched by Russia in the second large strike this week, the air force said. The air alerts in Ukrainian regions lasted for several hours in the middle of the night. National grid operator Ukrenergo said equipment at its facilities in Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast and Lviv region in the west were damaged by the strikes. Two energy workers in the Zaporizhzhia region were wounded and taken to the hospital, it said. Ivan Fedorov, Zaporizhzhia's governor, said the fire broke out at an energy infrastructure facility in the region and further damage assessment was underway as repair brigades and emergency workers dealt with the attack. "We can say for sure: the enemy will not stop. Ukraine needs air defense systems," Fedorov said on the Telegram messaging app. Moscow has said its air strikes against the Ukrainian energy infrastructure were in retaliation for Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian territory. Lviv regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said 67 firefighters and 12 special vehicles were involved in putting out the fire in his region on Ukraine's Polish border. He said there were no casualties in the Lviv region. Since March, Russian forces have intensified their bombardments of the Ukrainian power system, knocking out about half of the country's available generating capacity and causing a severe energy crunch. Despite warm summer weather, Ukrainian cities face scheduled energy cutoffs and the country's electricity imports from its European neighbors are at record levels.

SEOUL, South Korea — A nuclear-powered United States aircraft carrier arrived Saturday in South Korea for a three-way exercise stepping up their military training to cope with North Korean threats that escalated with its alignment with Russia. The arrival of the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group in Busan came a day after South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador to protest a pact reached between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this week that pledges mutual defense assistance in the event of war. South Korea says the deal poses a threat to its security and warned that it could consider sending arms to Ukraine to help fight off the Russian invasion as a response — a move that would surely ruin its relations with Moscow. Following a meeting between their defense chiefs in Singapore earlier in June, the United States, South Korea and Japan announced Freedom Edge. The new multidomain exercise is aimed at sharpening the countries’ combined response in various areas of operation, including air, sea and cyberspace. The Theodore Roosevelt strike group will participate in the exercise that is expected to start within June. South Korea’s military didn’t immediately confirm specific details of the training. South Korea’s navy said in a statement that the arrival of the Theodore Roosevelt demonstrates the strong defense posture of the allies and “stern willingness to respond to advancing North Korean threats.” The carrier’s visit comes seven months after another U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, came to South Korea in a show of strength against the North. The Theodore Roosevelt strike group also participated in a three-way exercise with South Korean and Japanese naval forces in April in the disputed East China Sea, where worries about China’s territorial claims are rising. In the face of growing North Korean threats, the United States, South Korea and Japan have expanded their combined training and boosted the visibility of strategic U.S. military assets in the region, seeking to intimidate the North. The United States and South Korea have also been updating their nuclear deterrence strategies, with Seoul seeking stronger assurances that Washington would swiftly and decisively use its nuclear capabilities to defend its ally from a North Korean nuclear attack.

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ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN — Economic analysts in Kazakhstan say the government is using a formulation for setting the poverty line that fails to capture the number of people living below a humane standard of living. The result, they say, lowers the amount of assistance provided to the poor. Kazakhstan sets the poverty line at about $70 a month, slightly over $2 a day. That results in an official poverty rate of 5.1% of the population. The World Bank, in a March report, More, Better and Inclusive Jobs in Kazakhstan, said that using its poverty line of $3.65 a day for lower middle-income countries (although the World Bank actually classifies Kazakhstan as upper middle-income) puts the poverty rate at about 10% in 2018. Meruert Makhmutova, an economist and director of the Almaty-based Public Policy Research Center, said Kazakhstan should adopt the World Bank standard, which she said would result in more people receiving government assistance. "The switch to $3.65 a day would automatically increase the number of the poor and the government would have to provide targeted social assistance to a greater number of people," Makhmutova said. "As a result, the government, failing to admit the real scale of poverty, reduces budget spending on social assistance to poor citizens." The official Kazakh poverty level is close to the World Bank’s extreme poverty line of $2.15 a day, but Andrey Chebotarev, an Almaty-based economist and director of the Alternativa center for topical research, told VOA that figure is not applicable in Kazakhstan because of climate. "It’s hard to just survive on the street in Kazakhstan in winter because the weather and climate make it impossible," he told VOA, referring to winter temperatures that could drop to minus 30 degrees Celsius. "We need to assess poverty differently," he said. Makhmutova also disputed methods authorities use to set the minimum wage and gauge the unemployment level. Until recently, the minimum wage has been set arbitrarily without consideration of personal incomes or the real cost of living in the country. It was set around $190 a month for 2024, even though the average monthly wage was $890 at the end of last year. "The government doesn’t use the average wage for setting the minimum wage, that’s why the minimum wage doesn’t grow substantially and its growth in the past few years doesn’t even match the inflation rate," Makhmutova said. Baglan Kasenov, the head of the Kazakh Labor and Social Protection Ministry’s department for labor and social partnership, told VOA the Kazakh government had adopted a new methodology to set the minimum wage starting next year. It conforms to International Labor Organization recommendations, he said, and will be based on the median wage and productivity, reaching 50% of the median wage in future. The median wage, where half of workers receive less than that and half receive more, was about $560 a month last year. The joblessness rate is another contentious issue in Kazakhstan, as authorities, Chebotarev said, now categorize people, for example, farming their kitchen gardens and working without pay in family businesses as "self-employed," which is new. Makhmutova said the move "masks unemployment"; the number of jobless has been constant at around 450,000 people or under 5% in the past few years, whereas the number of self-employed is around 2.1 million, according to the government. "As for unemployment, it’s a Kazakh invention of global scale because we have invented 2 million self-employed and blame everything on them," Chebotarev said. "Our estimates of unemployment should be revised … but no one in government wants to consider self-employed as jobless." World Bank report questioned Use of the government figures has resulted in criticism of the World Bank report, which claimed that despite declining economic growth, Kazakhstan’s poverty rate had dropped. Makhmutova questioned the World Bank’s report because it based its analysis on "irrelevant" official Kazakh income and unemployment statistics – figures that are derived from the wrong method to assess poverty as well as being out of date. She told VOA the report "is not objective in the first place because it relies on statistics provided by the labor ministry which avoids the assessment of the real scale of poverty and unemployment." In addition, although the report was published this year, "the latest statistical data on poverty is from 2018, which is why it is irrelevant for the assessment of the current situation," she said, citing the COVID-19 pandemic and high inflation after Russia invaded Ukraine as having worsened living standards and increased poverty in Kazakhstan since 2018. In response to Makhmutova’s criticism, the World Bank said it welcomes "critique and debate" over its reports, adding that the report "used the latest available data as is standard in World Bank reports for analysis."